New Recruit
by dpluver
Summary: Pre-PP. After a fight with Danny, Tucker joins the Masters Blasters to prove his worth as a ghost hunter.


**This story will be 3-4 chapters long. Just a random idea I had after watching "What You Want." Enjoy~**

"Tucker! Thermos!"

"I'm on it!" Tucker reached around his shoulder, searching for the device, but it wasn't there. Danny, about fifteen feet up, was getting beaten to a pulp by some new ghost, and Sam was off to the side, trying to fight off the ghost's helper, which had taken her hostage.

These new ghosts were throwing rocks and debris all over the place, and unfortunately for Tucker, he was right in the line of fire. One large rock smashed into his face, shattering his glasses. He fell to his knees, trying to feel the ground around him to secure his location and start searching for the missing thermos using only his hands to feel around for it.

"Tucker!" Danny yelled louder this time, clearly in trouble. Searching frantically, Tucker felt several more stones pelting his head and the rest of his body, but without his glasses, getting anywhere safe was going to be a challenge.

Finally, the rain of rocks stopped and he could faintly see the flashes of blue light that indicated that the ghosts were being sucked into the thermos. With the ghosts gone, Danny changed back and walked over with Sam to where Tucker was still on the ground.

Even in his blurred vision, he could see several bruises covering Danny's body and Sam's face had at least three open wounds with blood oozing down the side of her face. They didn't look too happy with him.

"Tuck," Danny started, clearly trying to maintain a neutral tone, "That's the third time this week. When my ghost sense goes off, that kind of means get off the PDA and start helping."

Tucker glared at him. "Oh, sorry if I'm such a hindrance to the great Danny Phantom," he spat. "I tried, okay? The ghosts broke my glasses."

"Sometimes trying isn't enough," Danny said angrily, rubbing his sore head. Tucker had been obsessing over a new application on his PDA for over two weeks. Now his addiction to the app was starting to interfere with the trio's ghost hunting priorities. Instead of immediately grabbing a weapon and preparing to fight when a ghost was nearby, he was taking several excessive seconds to carefully save his progress and power down the device. For his non-techno geek friends, this was starting to get very irksome.

"Well sometimes you have to remember that _I_ don't have ghost powers!" Tucker growled with a touch of envy in his voice. Danny cringed, remembering the lone time that Tucker _had_ had ghost powers and how that experience had nearly destroyed their friendship. Since then- and even more after Jazz's whole lecture about sensitivity for those suffering from ghost envy- Danny had tried to be more patient with Tucker, but he wasn't the one getting beaten up by ghosts on a nearly-daily basis!

Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Danny spoke next. "Look, you're clearly burnt out on all the ghost hunting lately…why don't you take a break for a while? We can let Jazz fill in for you…"

"Really Danny? Take a break?" Tucker, rather than immediately accepting, looked more upset than before. "What are you trying to say? I'm not good enough to fight with you, even though I'm the reason you've managed to survive this long?"

"He's not saying that," Sam answered for him, putting her foot down and stepping in between her quarrelling friends.

Danny's eyes flashed green. "No, maybe I _am_ saying that." Then he laughed. "You honestly believe the only reason I'm still able to fight ghosts is solely because _you've_ been helping me? What about Sam and Jazz?"

"Danny, cut it out," Sam said sharply. "And you don't say anything, either," she added to Tucker, who looked like he was ready to throw another insult Danny's way. "We're a team; we all contribute, okay?"

"Yeah, well, maybe I don't want to be a part of this _team_ anymore," Tucker said, then began walking away in an undetermined direction.

"Tucker…"

"No, let him go," Danny interrupted Sam; unable to think straight with the number of injuries he had accumulated today. If Tucker had been a little quicker with the thermos, maybe he could've avoided four or five of the gashes and bruises on his body. "He'll come grovelling back to us like he always does."

Sam glared at him. "Real mature, Danny. Sometimes, I really wonder about you two."

Before Danny could say anything else, Sam stomped off in the opposite direction. Once she was out of sight, his shoulders slumped and he settled on the ground, trying to clear his head. He didn't necessarily mean to yell at Tucker, but he couldn't suppress the image of Tucker happily playing with his PDA while Danny was getting kicked in the face by two ghosts at once. And it's not like Tucker would ignore him forever. He would come around. Eventually.

After nearly ten days of not speaking, Danny really began to wonder. Sam had initially attempted to make the boys forgive and forget, but Tucker shrugged off all of her efforts. After she realized he was giving her the cold shoulder- thinking that she had sided with Danny all along- Sam begrudgingly returned to Danny, who had been practically begging for her to start talking to him again.

"I don't know what's with him," she whispered to Danny during a science experiment. Tucker had paired with Valerie today, which only increased Danny's anger towards his friend. Siding with the enemy. Of course Tucker knew that would be the number one way to push his best friend's buttons.

"Don't know, don't care. Maybe it's better for him to give up on ghost hunting. Caused him too many mental breakdowns when a problem couldn't be solved by his precious technology."

"Danny, I know you care, whether or not you'll admit it. You just want him to come to you first," Sam said accusingly.

Danny didn't respond. She was right, of course, but he didn't want to admit it aloud. Instead, he continued focusing on their stupid, burnt-out Bunsen burner. "Oh I give up," he said at last, and with a furtive glance around the room, he shot the glass with his ectoplasmic ray. Nobody noticed, except for Tucker, who was now staring stonily at Danny from across the classroom. Danny responded with a glare in his direction.

"It'll be so nice getting an A for once in chemistry," Tucker said to Valerie in an exaggeratedly loud voice. "I should've gotten a new partner _ages_ ago."

Danny was shaking with fury. So much so that his eyes were glowing green and it took Sam slapping him behind the head to get him to focus.

"You two need to stop fighting before you blow something up," Sam said cautiously, noting how her friend's hands were glowing as he watched Tucker playfully flirting with the girl he had come so close to asking out. Only when Sam's hands rested on his did he turn back around and his hands returned to normal. He stared down at their hands and back up to Sam, who quickly removed hers from his and blushed.

After school, Danny met up with Sam to take her home. They could've walked, but Danny didn't feel much like talking today and flying was a great excuse not to say much. He dropped her off in her room, but didn't escape before her latest round of admonishing about the Tucker situation.

"Honestly Danny, just go to his house and apologize. It won't kill you to do it, you know."

_Since I'm already half dead, there's not much left to kill off_, Danny wanted to say but instead he nodded and phased through the wall. As he was flying home, be briefly considered making a pit stop at Tucker's and actually following Sam's advice. He knew she meant well and was probably right, but Tucker wasn't entirely blameless either.

Danny sighed and veered right, in the direction of Tucker's house. He was within a quarter mile of the Foley residence when suddenly a giant glowing net struck him from behind. He yelled as it sent him flying to the ground, tangled in a heap of red, anti-ecto mesh. Above, he could hear cheers and people high-fiving each other. So at least it wasn't Valerie…

When they landed, Danny could see four pairs of feet attached to people clad in high tech, red jumpsuits. The group had him surrounded and three were pointing ecto-weapons at him, while the fourth hand cuffed him. Only when the net was completely removed did he see who his attackers were. It was the ever-annoying Masters Blasters, along with their latest recruit: Tucker.

**Review! :)**


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